SCIENTISTS TEACH CHIMPANZEE TO SPEAK ENGLISH

RESEARCHERS have for the first time taught apes how to
speak. Two animals, a pygmy chimp and an orangutan, have
been able to hold conversations with humans.

The chimp, called Panbanisha, has a vocabulary of 3,000
words and talks through a computer that produces a synthetic
voice as she presses symbols on a keyboard.

She now speaks constantly, constructing sentences ranging
from, "Please can I have an iced coffee" to discussing videos
she has watched with the scientists who look after her at
Georgia State University's language research center in
Atlanta.

The 20-year-old orangutan, called Chantek, is a few miles
away at Atlanta zoo where it, too, is learning to use a voice
synthesizer - a skill it is expected to master quickly, since it
already has a 2,000-word vocabulary in sign language.

Among its first spoken words, delivered Stephen
Hawking-style, was the request to keepers: "Please buy me a
hamburger." Recently it saved money paid to it in return for
carrying out tasks and building artifacts, then told scientists in
sign language: "I want to buy a pool," because a heat wave
was making life in the cage too uncomfortable.

The animals use a specially designed keypad with about 400
keys, each bearing a symbol. Some symbols have simple
meanings such as "apple"; others represent more abstract
concepts such as "give me", "good", "bad" or "help".

The animals have to learn all the symbols and then construct
sentences by pressing keys in the right order. The computer
speaks the words and flashes them up on a screen. Recently
Panbanisha, 14, has started writing words on the floor using
chalk - apparently learning letters from the computer screens.

Duane Rumbaugh, the university's professor of psychology
and biology, who is director of the center, said tests
suggested the animals had the language and cognitive skills of
a four-year-old child.

Panbanisha has gone further than just learning to speak and
read. She is teaching the same skills to her one-year-old son
Nyota, who has developed a vocabulary similar to that of a
one-year-old child. He cannot create sentences yet, but his
early start means he may soon outstrip his mother. Apes
could soon be talking to each other and language skills could
be passed from one generation to the next.

Panbanisha's mother, Matata, cannot use the keyboard, so
she tells Panbanisha, who then communicates her mother's
needs, such as: "Matata wants a banana."

When the apes look reflective, they may be asked what is
wrong. Sometimes they just reply: "I'm thinking about eating
something," or "I want to go to Campers Cavern" (a location
in their 55-acre site).

Now Rumbaugh has been given a US government grant for a
project to see if great apes can be given the power of true
speech.

Until recently it had been thought they would never speak
because their voice boxes could not produce the range of
sounds used by humans.

Then researchers noticed that some animals were successfully
copying human words and phrases. The sounds were
distorted, but recognizable. A spokesman for the center said:
"Over time our opinions of apes could change and one day
we may have to extend them human rights. Who knows, soon
Panbanisha may voice an opinion on that."